With pending lawsuits still hovering over the university, Baylor’s new head football coach, Matt Rhule, is not shying away from the tough topics and says he’s addressing them head on.
“I feel like I’m called to be here,” said Rhule, who left the University of Temple last year to become the head man in Waco. “To kind of fix this.”
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Five years ago, Johnny Manziel was just a south Texas, high school football hero. Now he is a 23-year-old who desperately needs help.
Nonetheless, he dominated in high school. During his time at quarterback for Tivy High School, he racked up 153 touchdowns and accolades galore. While his high school career was successful, he was not highly recruited. Read More
I will admit, at first glance, I thought this was just another case of a university over-prioritizing football. That happens all the time. While this clearly is not one of those instances, sometimes the idol-ization of sports even leads to good things. It can be a means for overcoming economic hardship or a lack of educational opportunity. Then I gave it some thought and this issue is much deeper. This deals with sexism, institutional oppression, and an overall lack of humanity. What happened at Baylor has nothing to do with sports. Things like this happen because, as a whole, we do not place nearly enough focus on the safety of women. In cases like Baylor, we blatantly disregard it. Football did not cause all these problems, it just manifested them. Read More
Monday Night, when Alabama and Clemson square off, Nick Saban is coaching for a lot more than a National Championship. He is not coaching for his job, or any other job. Oddly enough, he is coaching for his 100th win at Alabama. More importantly though, he is coaching for a new legacy. The legacy as the coach of the greatest run in College Football history and that is no exaggeration. Read More
On the eve of the second inaugural College Football Playoff, I ask, how many teams should get to play for a championship? Every sport does what is best for competition, MONEY, and its teams. As much as you do not want to exclude championship caliber teams, you also do not want undeserving teams taking part either. In short, there is no universal right answer, nor will any answer be perfect every year. The point is to get it right as often as possible and deal with abnormalities as they go. Read More
The College Football Playoff is not working. Okay, I will admit, it is interesting. As a College Football fan, I have never been more drawn to watch every Top 25 match-up. More teams than ever have a chance to play for a National Title. The Playoff is allowing for more inclusion and a more accurate champion, but it is not good enough. The issue is the committee. The 12-person selection committee is failing us. Their job is to select the 4 best teams to compete in the playoff, but are they really doing that? Or are they just giving us the 4 biggest brands to generate revenue and debate? Read More
List all of the Private School, FBS programs with, multiple national championships since 1980. Southern Methodist University, The University of Miami, and The University of Southern California make the list. Not even the great Notre Dame who many consider the best College Football program makes the cut. In reality, only 10 public schools have multiple national championships since 1980. So as far as “what have you done for me lately” goes, 90% of programs should respond, “not much”. It is tough to be excellent in this new, ultra-competitive, nationwide recruiting era of college football. This is not to say you cannot have a great season without winning a national championship, but expectations should become more relative. Read More
The University of Missouri had an immense impact on the rest of the NCAA this week. This came about because The University ignored the voices of graduate students, minorities, women, political groups and athletes, for months. Had the University shown some propensity to change this would have never happened, but it did and it changed college athletics for the better. What I am talking about has everything to do with the players strike and nothing to do with the issues. Without getting into the details of their cause, the Mizzou football team proved that college athletes have power. The team is only 4-5 and is not likely to make a bowl, but with the threat of them sitting out a game, The University of Missouri system’s president was forced to resign. Read More
Collegiate Athletes need to be paid. And no, not a cost-of-attendance stipend and not an “everybody gets an equal slice of the pie” payment. College athletes of every sport deserve to sell their services to a school.
I am writing this as a college student who is not going to school for free. I understand the value of scholarship in today’s society. I also understand this scholarship has NO VALUE to an anyone who is uninterested with getting a degree and no one has the right to tell him/her what they should value, athletes included. But a school should be able to offer whatever amount of money it deems appropriate to any player. Read More
College football fan, please stop complaining about preseason polls, you like them. Non-college football fan, please stop complaining about preseason polls, you do not understand their value. Obviously, preseason polls are the beginning of the buzz that college football brings. It is the start of the wonderful banter that comes with the sport. Yes, many people complain about how useless the polls are, but that is a narrow view point shared by many. In reality, while preseason polls are virtually guaranteed to have some inaccuracies, they typically reflect what the masses believe pretty accurately. Now some of you are yelling, “what about the minority view point that believes…?”. Well we cannot possibly hope to please everybody. If that were the case, I recommend you endorse each program releasing their own bias poll stating that they are the best team in the nation and allow them to brainwash you with whatever skewed statistic or excuse they can come up with. Read More
